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Description

References to the Gesamtkunstwerk, a "total work of art," abound in discussions of modern art and culture, often describing a seamless melding of a variety of art forms that overwhelm the emotions, impede critical thought, and mold a group of individuals into a powerless mass. Famously set forth by the composer Richard Wagner in 1849, the term has been applied to such disparate settings as the cinema palaces of Berlin in the 1920s and Andy Warhol's Factory scene in New York in the 1960s. In Modernism after Wagner, Juliet Koss explores the history and legacy of Wagner's concept, laying out its genealogy and the political, aesthetic, and cultural context from which it emerged, and tracing its development and reception through the 1930s.

Author Biography

Juliet Koss is associate professor and chair of art history at Scripps College and coordinator of the Joint Art History Program of the Claremont Colleges.